Troy school officials adopt pandemic rules

Troy Public Schools board members narrowly voted to make masks optional when students return to classes after hearing from a handful of parents last week who overwhelmingly opposed a face covering mandate.

Superintendent Jacob Francom suggested reopening schools without requiring masks during an Aug. 12 board meeting, noting that the district hadn’t seen a positive case of the coronavirus since before the board lifted a previous face covering requirement in April.

Despite the school board’s action, Troy students will be required to wear masks on buses due to a federal requirement. While school officials had appealed to U.S. senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines for clarification, Francom said an attorney had advised the district to change their plan to include the obligation.

“Many districts in Montana are pretty up in arms about it and just frustrated that it’s even being included in buses and they are taking away the local control,” said Francom.

To mitigate potential spread of the virus, Francom recommended that the board put an emphasis on sanitization and social distancing when schools reopen on Aug. 31. Staff will clean classrooms, high traffic areas, bathrooms and surfaces including doorknobs. Francom said the district noticed a decrease in the general sickness due to the disinfection policy last year.

Francom did not propose strict social distancing guidelines, saying that recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had shifted over the past year.

“It’s been confusing from the CDC as everyone is aware, they said six feet then they said three feet and then they said six feet now and it's just a zoo,” he said. “[We’re recommending] just to try to socially distance.”

Following encouragement from state officials, the school district will continue to offer remote learning options.

“There are some families that would still like to have that because some of them do have some pretty severe health issues,” Francom said.

While wildfire smoke might hamper outdoor activities, administrators do not plan to limit extracurriculars on account of the virus. The district’s plan calls for holding lunches in the cafeteria but administrators are prepared to isolate children in classrooms for meals if needed.

The high school will follow a six period schedule this year instead of the 2.5 period schedule it ran last year. Although the district does not have a school nurse this year, Francom said staff would still isolate students who showed symptoms of sickness and contact their parents.

Students who show symptoms of the virus are not required to be tested but Francom noted that a negative test could reduce the time a student spends in quarantine.

Were the severity of the pandemic in Troy to change, school board members could shift to three other phases, each providing varying degrees of restrictions, in the district’s pandemic operational outline.

Board member Lori Damon said she was concerned by the rising number of cases throughout the state and county. She suggested at least including a fallback in the district’s plan for requiring face coverings if cases spiked in Troy.

“I just feel that wearing masks is a small thing to do that could possibly prevent us from ever having to go back to online instruction,” she said.

Were the district to see a sudden uptick, Francom said board members could reconvene immediately and reassess the district’s outline. In phase one of the plan, students would have to wear masks at least in one-on-one and small group settings.

Carol Parsons, a recent addition to the board, suggested starting the school year cautiously and then loosening up requirements. Her concerns stemmed primarily from students in the elementary school who had not been vaccinated.

Board member David Orr said that after consulting the CDC and other sources, he had found that among children the risk posed by the coronavirus was roughly the same as the seasonal flu.

“I don’t remember the last time anybody mandated masks for the seasonal flu,” he said.

Hospitalization rates remained low among children he noted.

Medical professionals have made varying statements on comparisons between the coronavirus and the flu in children. Dr. Roshni Mathew, of Stanford's Children's Hospital, told NPR in May that children face about the same risks of serious consequences from the coronavirus as they do from the flu.

But in a study published June 4, the CDC found that the number of hospitalizations linked to the virus among children aged 12-17 was up to three times greater than the number of hospitalizations associated with the flu over three recent influenza seasons. Most hospitalizations linked to the coronavirus occur in older adults but severe disease can occur in people of all ages.

Orr said dozens of virologists had determined that cloth masks do “absolutely nothing except they make you feel warm and fuzzy.”

The CDC recommends wearing properly fitted masks to reduce the spread of the virus.

Ultimately, Orr said he preferred to trust virologists who invented the protocols for dealing with viruses over the CDC. He referred to CDC directors as hacks and mouthpieces for the presidential administrations that appointed them.

Current CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, has served as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and as a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is recognized for research that advanced the national and global response to HIV/AIDS.

Board member Terry Holmes, voiced support for making masks optional, citing the social strain that face coverings could cause.

“I believe masks do more damage than good,” he said. “I believe that putting a child in a mask for hours at a time is a psychological cruelty and it's not something that I would vote on in 100 years,” he said.

He also opposed the federal mask requirements for students on buses.

“Here big brother again is telling us what we have to do,” said Holmes.

Board Chair Sylvia Maffit said the decision for her revolved around parents’ thoughts on the plan. While she got the impression that many of the parents who had come to the meeting were not in favor of masks, she noted that there were some in the community who would like to see face coverings in schools.

“It’s my feeling that there are parents who really do want their children to wear masks. I’ve got a feeling they are not here tonight,” she said.

Christopher Koehn told school board members that the district’s mask requirement created a severe psychological issue for one of his children last year. Recalling how his generation attended chickenpox slumber parties in their youth, Koehn urged the school board not to let fear dictate their decisions.

Parent Clay Campbell evoked the pioneering spirit of early Montanans when asking board members to set aside fears of the pandemic.

“This country wasn’t made of people who were afraid,” he said. “This part of the country wouldn't even have been found if people just stayed over on the east coast and were afraid of traveling across the country.”

Holmes, Maffit and Orr voted in favor of the proposed pandemic operational outline. Parsons and Damon opposed the plan.